27Î 



of this kind. A sufficient explanation never has been given. 

 VOIGT 18) has shown that silver in its colloid state brought 

 into the bloodvessels only circulates for a short time. It soon 

 takes up a position alongside the wall of the vessels, especially 

 in the spleen, the liver and the marrow. We therefore must 

 assume that it develops its action from that position, and if it 

 is true that in septic conditions the bacteria live in the endo- 

 thelial cells, the result is quite clear. It must be remembered 

 that the view as if the bacteria were freely developing in the 

 blood in cases of septicaemia is rapidly losing ground. 



We now have seen that infections as a rule bring the guilty 

 parasites into the blood, that these parasites must arrive in the 

 endothelial cells, and that in many cases the endothelium heavily 

 suffers from their invasion. We now may take up the question what 

 are the further results of this connection between parasites 

 and endothelium. It is obvious that the efforts at defence, 

 of which we find the results in the whole organism as the 

 so called antibodies, originate in the endothelium which enters 

 into connection with the parasites. Many known facts already 

 correspond with this view. These considerations bring us up 

 to the question as to the places where antibodies are formed. 

 Many answers have been given already. Many authors localise 

 this function in the spleen 19) 20) 21) 22), but they all 

 agree that this certainly is not an exclusive function. Animals 

 after exstirpation of the spleen still produced antibodies, and 

 extracts from other organs as well contained antibodies as 

 extracts from the spleen, be it in less amount. FRIEDBERGER 

 and GlRGOLOFF 23) proved that after transplantation of blood- 

 less organs derived from animals treated with antigens, the 

 new animals possessed antibodies. The spleen transported most, 

 but the kidney showed the same result, only in less amount. 

 If one remembers the richness of the spleen in endothelium, 

 and the thickness thereof, it is easy to understand these 

 differences. My own, be it very small, experience is that 

 immunised animals often possess an enlarged spleen. This 

 corresponds with GOLDSCHEIDER's observation 24) that soldiers 

 after vaccination against typhoid fever, rather often showed 

 an enlarged spleen. 



The supposition that the spleen in the formation of antibodies 



